The improved manual control of the present invention can be used as a control for cars, such as for releasing the latch holding a door closed or for releasing the latch holding the hood closed, for lawn mowers, airplanes wherein a sheath and cable structure is required to perform a remote function and for motion furniture to allow a person sitting in the furniture to control the position of the furniture or to lock it into its upright position.
Prior to the present invention cable-sheath structures have been used in many applications and have normally included a cable extending through and out each end of its sheath with connecting means on each end of the sheath and on each end of the cable. Normally one of the connecting means is connected to the housing or frame structure in which the manual actuator is positioned, and the actuator includes an actuator lever structure pivotally mounted to the housing with the end of the cable connected to the actuator lever so that manual movement of the lever causes sliding movement of the cable in the sheath and allows the desired action by the connection of the opposite end to the component which is to be controlled by the sliding movement of the cable.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,056,862 and 5,107,720 disclose the aforementioned control structures. An additional control structure used with motion furniture is disclosed in my copending application Ser. No. 07/983,126filed concurrently herewith. In each of these cable-sheath manual controls, the cable extends in an almost straight line as it approaches the actuator housing, as it passes through the housing connecting means on the end of the sheath which connects to the actuator housing and as it extends through the housing to its connection to the actuator lever. Any change in direction of the cable and sheath are in generally long radius bends and they are at a distance from the actuator housing.
An additional control structure which is used for automobile doors is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,822. This patent discloses a similar operating structure but uses a control rod rather than the cable and sheath structure.